


A Perfectly Wrong Place

by yaodai



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bandomeer, Gen, I'm not sure where I'm going with that, I'm probably just too anxious about the Rebels episode, and honestly why time travel always equals saving the world?, but I felt the need to write about smaul and obi-chan, so here it is, they're both too tired to give a shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-01 16:59:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10194470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaodai/pseuds/yaodai
Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi and (Formerly) Darth Maul travel back in time.Only instead of saving the galaxy, they decided to take a vacation.





	1. Where The Universe Spat Them Out

A Perfectly Wrong Place

Chapter One: Where The Universe Spat Them Out

 

  

Darkness was a rarity on Tatooine, happening only a few times during the planet rotations in the star system. During the nighttime, the light of one of the suns was still lurking from behind the desert sands, locking the horizon in an permanent state of sunset.

Sometimes it looked like the world was set on fire.

Today however, it was dark.

The black skies, hanging over the desert, sucked up the head from the sands in no time, giving the world a breath of relief and then the chill that was as deadly, as was the heat of the day.

Obi-Wan watched the flames of the bonfire in front of him. He build it with utmost care, since the firewood alone swallowed a whole lot of his money. Literally burning through money like that didn't seem too smart of an idea. It was a tradition, one wrapped tight with the local culture and beliefs, something that was here long before the Hutts took over. It could be even be from the days before sapient species raised their heads up and for the first time saw a target instead of some impenetrable barrier.

Or maybe he was just sitting there, feeling the sands slipping beneath his hands and legs, because the flames were warm, filling the cool air with the aromatic smoke.

During the night like this one, Obi-Wan desperately missed what once was, letting the memories run freely in his mind just for these few hours filled with night, before shutting them away again. It felt a little bit like he was honoring the days of the past this way, almost like burning incense for the dead, letting the ghosts of the past roam just for the few hours.

Of course, the dark night happened to be also the day where the past decided to pay him a visit in the flesh.

To tell the truth, Obi-Wan wasn't sure if he felt the presence first, or it was the sound that caught his attention; steps too heavy for a human, shifting the sands in such an odd manner.

With a long stick, Obi-Wan carefully shifted some of the embers,fearing for it to die out too soon.

There was still so much time, so much time to pass before the suns would return to the skies.

"Kenobi," Darth Maul said, his voice hoarse and travelling over the empty decent like an avalanche.

He made a step forward, then another, graceful despite the age and sands slipping under his artificial feet.

Well, there was that, Obi-Wan thought then slowly, trying to not grimace at the protesting joints, stood up.  
The lightsaber slipped into his hand almost unnoticed, an old friend that knew him much better than Obi-Wan even expected too.

"You're in the wrong place," he said, as the blade came up to life, filling the night with sharp, blue light.

Maul looked down at him, his yellow, blazing eyes perfectly mirroring the twin suns of Tatooine.  
He was like a ghost from the past made flesh, like the seventeen years between now and the day where the Jedi ended somehow avoided him entirely.

"I am exactly where I need to be," the Sith replied, not drawing his blade yet.

It was there, Obi-Wan could see it, a rough shape reflecting some of the blue light, he could feel the red crystals resonating with the weapon in his very own hand, like they recognized each other just as their wielders did.

"I am not sure about you, though."

"Leave," Obi-Wan said yet again, trying to slip the Force into his voice without making it to noticeable for the Zabrak. "Leave, for this is not the time for this."

Surprisingly enough, Maul did stop.

He shifted his head to the side and looked at him, his expression not one of rage and hate, but something that seemed to be truly out of place there.

"This is tiring," he said. "Aren't you tired? Of it all?"

"What are you here for?"

"Just looking for something feeble and flying," Maul answered, then his mouth twisted in an unpleasant grin, baring sharp teeth on one side. "You don't look like you have seen it lately."

Completely ignoring the lightsaber, Darth Maul once more moved forward... just to nonchalantly drop near the bonfire.

Obi-Wan had no idea what to think, but standing there, with the blade ignited was starting to look rather stupid.  
He turned around and turned the lightsaber off only after he had the best view on whatever the Sith was doing, just for the sake of paranoia.

“Whatever you're looking for, it is clearly not here then,” Obi-Wan replied.

Maul tilted his head to look up at him and smiled. It wasn't a menacing smirk, or a cruel grimace that was a guest on his face so often. The expression was more like the Zabrak was deeply satisfied about knowing something Obi-Wan did not.

“On the contrary,” he said.

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to ask what it was, but there was no reason to do so. The answer was already shifting in the dark sky above them, shifting and twisting with power.

He didn't need to ask what it was either; while he had no words to name what was happening, the Force gave him everything he needed.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and accepted the greatest gift he could even receive.

 

xxx

 

The world came back to live in a mad swirl of colors and smells, wrapping itself around his skin like a cold wind. The sudden mix of sensations was almost too much after that - what it was? A split of a second? An eternity? - of feeling nothing but the Force.

Instinctively, Obi-Wan knew that he was torn away from Tatooine, knew that his body was different now, bones and muscles not aching with age and old scars. But how different?

The answer was already there, waiting for him locked in the shape of his - small - fingers with the nails chewed off to the raw flesh, in the soft, too soft, clean robe covering his arms, sleeves not ragged at all, in the lack of weight on his hip.

However grasping it, took Obi-Wan awhile. His brain just couldn't make sense of the world around him. Everything seemed to be shifting around him, going back and forth in waves, while the thundering in his ears was deafening enough that anything else couldn't get through.

What, Obi-wan thought, desperately trying to make sense of it all, to calm down enough to be able to think.

What.

Or rather... when.

Something did happened, something unexplained, something that wasn't even making any sense at all, but the Force around him was a proof enough that it happened nonetheless, simply deciding to ignore all the known laws of the universe.

For almost two decades, it was dim and quiet and now, now it was blinding, with the sources of light moving in each direction, shining like thousands stars at once.

The past. Whatever had happened, Obi-Wan was in the past, in the times where the Jedi still were, still were the Peacekeepers, still were on Coruscant, same as he did.

And he himself was almost thirteen, waiting for the day of his birthday like it was the death sentence.

Without a Master, he would be send to the AgriCorps, to a fate that seemed worse than death.

Now, with all the experience he had, Obi-Wan had no idea what was so terrifying about such fate.

By all means, it sounded more like vacations than anything else.

His senses were finally good enough to look around.

He had no idea where exactly they were, but the impossibly high buildings, reaching far into the... not sky, but the foundation of yet another floor looked definitely Coruscant.  
And yes, they.

There was another one, a few feet next to him, as shook by the universe sweeping the rug from under his feet as Obi-Wan was, if not more.  
The pattern of tattoos on the red skin was unmistakable, even if everything else was wrong, starting from the ragged tunic so worn out, the dye was barely there, making it look more grey than actually black. A white plasteel of collar was contrasting vividly with his skin.

Obi-Wan recognized the thing on the spot, because he remembered all too well how it felt to wear one, when all the mess with the Zygerrian slavers went in all the shapes of wrong.

The other detail that was throwing Obi-Wan off was the fact that Darth Maul was t i n y .

He was aware that there was some sort of age difference between them and he himself definitely wasn't looking all that good while prepubescent either, but still. It was so hard to connect his sworn enemy, the man Obi-Wan actually hated spite the very heart of the Jedi code, to this small child.

He seemed to be as shook at the whole thing as Obi-Wan was.  
Not exactly moving, just sitting on the floor, staring somewhere with his eyes wide open-

Obi-Wan furrowed his brow, the little details that were off catching his attention.  
To wide, the iris way too spread, breathing off, too fast, too shallow, backs way to stiff-

"Maul," Obi-wan said, trying to ignore the fact that his own voice sounded of in his own ears, high and childlike. "Maul!"

It was ridiculous, truly, to do this at all, but here Obi-Wan was, carefully trying to bring his sworn enemy back from whatever horrifying thing he was reliving now.  
Maul did not react. His breathing was getting faster and faster, while hands reached up and began clawing at his throat with long, sharp fingernails.

Spitting out a series of vulgarities, Obi-Wan moved forward and batted the hands away, before the claws managed to cut the skin open. Just as he managed to get them away, Maul reached up again, forcing Obi-Wan to grab his wrists and pin them down.

Now he could at least look at the collar up close; trying to recall a way to pull one down without having the actual key on disposal.  
It definitely was the source of the panic attack. Or rather it was the way how the collar cut the connection with the Force that send Maul into a blind panic.  
It became a standard thing for ziggerian slaves long time ago and many others slave owners followed the suit, not wanting to deal with the results of awakening of a feral Force user. The blasted thing was also way too good at rendering Jedi powerless.

“Just give me a moment,” Obi-Wan said, concentrating on making his short, graceless fingers work around the lock. Wasting some time just to think about his options would be just inhumane. The fact that it was his sworn enemy, an murderer and a person who would do everything to just make Obi-Wans life just a little bit worse didn't matter at all.

Finally, the collar gave a satisfying click. Obi-Wan immediately pulled it down and then threw it against the nearest wall, while shifting away from Maul.

He had no clue how his flight or fight instincts are going to show after regaining connection to the Force and being head-butted by a Zabrak was definitely not among the best things that could happen to a person.

There was no headbutting, nor punching. Instead, there was a sudden charge in the Force as Maul presence grasped at it, just a short flash of something dark and desperate, before it all seemingly disappeared. Then Maul bended forward and retched.

It was a good thing that Obi-Wan moved away after all, because there were things he didn't want to get on his tunic, ever.

“ I assume it didn't actually go as planned,” Obi-Wan commented, patiently waiting for Maul to finish.

“Go to hell, Kenobi.”

“Oh, you're getting better?”

Maul looked at him with murder intent in his eyes, before he grimaced and spat, probably trying to get rid of the taste in his mouths.

“I didn't know that these things were used on Dathomir,” Obi-Wan said, gesturing towards the discarded collar.

“I wasn't actually forewarned about this,” Maul grunted. “And what is this about Dathomir?”

Obi-Wan blinked.

“I was under the impression that you were-” he started.

There was no real reason to finish the sentence. All Maul had to do was to raise his eyebrow and the whole thing Obi-Wan was so certain about immediately fell apart.

He wasn't raised on Dathomir. The witches didn't like to let go of the Nightbrothers, instead keeping them bound to the planet and without an access to the technology. They wouldn't let go of one of them, especially one connected by blood to Mother Talzin and so powerful in the Force.

There definitely was a story behind it all, a dark one, one that Obi-Wan was actually glad to not know.

“Nevermind,” he said. “Are you feeling better now?”

“I'm not feeling like spitting my guts out, if that's what you're asking,” Maul replied. “I also had no idea that this is how things were supposed to go.”

“Then how did you know where to go in the first place?”

“A lot of different things at one,” Maul flexed his shoulders as if he was trying to shut, but wasn't sure how to move to do so. “Magic, also.”

“Magic?” Obi-Wan blinked. “I thought only the witches were allowed to use magic.”

“Everyone was dead anyway,” Maul snickered.

Well, that definitely made it much easier to break any taboo. Though, at the same time, learning would be much harder, without a teacher and the tradition of spoken works. Script was good, but never enough.

“What now?”

“Are you going to ask me if I'm going back to my Master?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

“I'm not,” Maul said. “Wherever I was supposed to be at this moment, I'm clearly not. “

“You're making it sound like it's a reason enough to execute you.”

Maul smiled tightly.

“But it is. The secrecy, it is very important to the Sith. That and the obedience. I'm not supposed to go against his will until I'm ready to take his place,” Maul explained, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Though I'm the odd one anyways.”

“The odd one?”

“There's supposed to be only two of the Sith. They already are. And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Are you going to follow your precious Master until he accepts you?”

“I'm going to be there when I'm needed, “Obi-Wan stated, not seeing a reason to lie. “Just like you've said before; I'm tired. I want to rest, away from all that fighting.”

“You're not going to become a Jedi then?”

“ I can't be more of a Jedi than I already am. What about you? Where are you going to go, if not back? “

“ Not Dathomir,” Maul replied immediately. “Too obvious. I've made that mistake once.”

Obi-Wan nodded.

“Why not go with me then?”

“What?”

“Come with me,” Obi-Wan repeated. “No one would expect you to sneak among the AgriCorps dropouts.”

Maul looked at him like he was crazy, but the silence was an answer on its own. He was actually considering the idea.

“This is ridiculous,” he finally said.

“We have an agreement then,”Obi-Wan nodded. He wasn't sure if he was glad that he would be able to keep an eye on the Sith this way or if it was just about not being completely lonely.

He slowly shifted again then stood up, feeling that the conversation was over.

Maul shifted too, pushing himself off the ground, only to awkwardly slip and drop on the ground yet again.

Obi-Wan wanted to ask if something was wrong, but the angry expression on Mauls face stopped him. The Zabrak looked furious and annoyed and murderous, while the Force around him seemed to be boiling… and all that wasn't even because of Obi-Wan annoying him with something. No, the burning stare was locked much, much lower.

“What it is?”

“Nothing for you to concern yourself with, Kenobi.”

Maul looked, like he was a step away from changing his mind and running Obi-Wan with a lightsaber… or whatever he could get his hands on at the moment, since the weapon wasn’t with him.

Obi-Wan nodded carefully and made fist step back, demonstrating that he wasn’t going to press on the issue.

Maul made a disgusted noise at him, then looked down. He pushed himself up… them awkwardly dropped back on the ground.

"What is wrong?" Obi-Wan asked, furrowing his brow, suddenly worried by the possibility that there were some unexpected consequences of travelling into the past by the means of... Obi-Wan actually had no clue how the whole thing was possible. However Maul seemed to know more. Or, at the very least, he knew where and when he was supposed to show up... which was a curious thing to know in the first place.

However now this was not the time for this question.

"Go away, Kenobi!" Maul snarled angrily at him. He would look scary, if not for the fact that he did not grow up yet into his features.

"There is clearly something going on-" Obi-Wan pushed on. If there were consequences to all of it, he needed to know and he needed to know now.

Maul only made another angry sound and dragged his legs towards his torso, as if he was trying to stay as far away from Obi-Wan as it was physically possible.

Obi-Wan blinked. That was a very odd way to shift one's position. Usually it was just moving the leg itself, not grabbing it and pulling...

The changing expression on Mauls face told him that the staring definitely did not escaped his attention.

"What?"

"You can't move."

"You're delusional."

A pang of irritation made Obi-Wan feel hot.

"You're clearly unable to stand up, that means-"

"That means I had no organic legs for, oh, I don't know, it would be about thirty years now?"

Oh. Oh!

That made a lot of sense. Maul spend more than a half of his life with mechanical prosthetics. It only made sense that, once, thrown back into a body that was fully organic, he had trouble with remembering how to properly use his legs.

Suddenly, looking down at Maul started to feel strange. It him, who cut the Sith in half, wanting nothing but to kill the man and failing at doing doing so, a mistake that was repeated once more, an act of mercy bleeding together with pure sadism that led to the fall of everything that was supposed to exist forever and ever.

"I don't need your help!" Maul barked furiously, taking his expression for something entirely else. "I can manage alone perfectly fine!"

Obi-Wan nodded slowly.

"You're not alone, though."

He stepped forward, half expecting Maul to jump forward and try to bite his throat open or something equally disturbing.

"You know what?" Obi-Wan asked the anger incarnated on the floor. "You were right. This? This is tiring. I'm tired of this."

He sighed.

"I'm tired of all of this. That's why my proposal stands. Come with me."

Maul wrinkled his nose.

"What, are you crazy?!"

"I thought you were going with me to Bandomeer."

"That what I've agreed to," Maul rolled his eyes. "However going with you now? I'm not going to make a single step into the Jedi Temple!"

"...that's a fair point. You need any help up?"


	2. The Unfamiliar Place Called Home

 

 

"Do... you want a piggyback ride?"

"Go away, Kenobi."

"I'm just asking," Obi-Wan quickly added, enjoying way, way too much things about this conversation. Just the mental image was enough to make his day.

"I'll manage," Maul grumbled in response.

"You are aware that we should leave this place pretty soon, yes?" Obi-Wan asked. "I'm not exactly sure how our arrival affected the Force, but I'm sure it did. And we are on Coruscant. Someone is going to investigate this place."

"I'll manage," he repeated stubbornly and glared at Obi-Wan.

Didn't move an inch, so he was clearly waiting for Obi-Wan to leave him be. Well, to be fair, Obi-Wan himself would prefer nobody watched as he was trying to relearn how to walk.

"Are you sure?"

"Are you deaf?"

Obi-Wan groaned in frustration. Young age did nothing when it came to Mauls temper, it seemed.

"Alright then," Obi-Wan sighed heavily. "Then let’s at least find a way to communicate."

"Kenobi, I was perfectly capable to disappear when the whole Galaxy was looking for me," Maul growled in annoyance. With the high pitched childish voice that sounded both cute and a bit disturbing. "I'm going to manage perfectly fine."

"And how are you going to know which ship to board? And when?"

Maul had no answer to that one, besides a very unhappy glare.

 

xxx

 

Sneaking his way back into the temple was a surprisingly easy task.

The difficult part was to not see everything broken and on fire, with white stones bearing marks of hundreds of blaster shots.

The holograms from the security cameras were more than enough to cause him nightmares for years, engraving themselves under his eyelids. And to warn the Jedi who still were somewhere, out there, trying to make the galaxy a better place, Obi-Wan had to go through hell that smelled like blood and fire.

Now he could taste it all again, on the back of his throat.

People, they were even more difficult. It was so odd, to switch from being completely and absolutely alone in the whole galaxy, to suddenly being surrounded by people, who he remembered dead.

Feeling almost surreal, Obi-Wan slowly made his way through the corridors, hoping to not catch anyone's attention, because he didn't feel ready for a conversation, any conversation.

Honestly, he thought. It would be better to just disappear somewhere with Maul the moment they decided to stick together. Definitely it would be much easier.

From under his eyelashes he looked around and felt another pang of guilt. Many of these people, he did not ever remembered.

He should be able to recall some names, connect them to the faces, but after so many years his mind was almost entirely blank. And the people he did remember, they were much older, looked different - not children with chubby cheeks, but well experienced war generals with hollow eyes, muscular and powerful and bleeding on the ground.

Obi-Wan shook his head.

He needed to think about the positive things. like the fact that he still remembered where he was supposed to sleep and at what time the meals were served and how soon, just few days away, he would be fr, far away from here.

Of course, he couldn't have it easy.

Just when he was hoping that no one would decide to spare some time to talk to him, he was stopped in his track.

And of course, just of course, the person who decided to notice him was Bruck Chun, his childhood nemesis.

Bruck, who he remembered falling to his doom, scared, filled with guilt and despair, dragged down into darkness by a person who had a great experience by manipulating feeling like jealousy and low self esteem.

Here, now, Bruck was alive, his white hair well combed and clean, his tunic in pristine shape, with a prideful smirk on his face.

"And here I thought you decided to do the smart thing and leave before they kicked you out to some farm world, Oafy-Wan!"

Years ago, such comment would wound him deeply, would make him want to punch the other boy. However with all the experience Obi-Wan had, it was all just so... baffling.

It was truly an epic fight, to keep his face straight and to not drop on his knees here and now, laughing hysterically, because the poor idiot in front of him was alive and adorably bratty.

"What, not even a response?" Bruck raised his chin even higher. "It looks like you can learn to recognize people better than you at the very least..."

obi-Wan did not trust himself enough to respond to that.

The silence was clearly distressing the boy. Bruck was quickly losing his composure, becoming visibly annoyed at the lack of any response.

"I'm not going to stop you," he grunted finally and waved hand at Obi-Wan. "Go and pack your things, this place is already starting to smell like a fertilizer with you standing there."

"Sure," this time his mouth were faster than is brain and the word just slipped out.

"What did you say?"

"Sure," Obi-Wan decided there was no reason to not respond. "I'm going to pack my things now."

Then he bowed, mostly to hide the twitching at the corners of his lips. He didn't want to make Bruck think that he was laughed at.

Obi-Wan remembered him well enough to know that would lead to a fist fight and punching a child was the last thing Obi-Wan wanted to do.

Luckily, the unusual act managed to freak the boy away before things got any worse.

With a sigh of relief, Obi-Wan closed the doors behind his dorm.

While the temple was big and there were only about ten thousands Jedi in the galaxy, the AgriCorps and all the other branches were not counted. That meant, there was a lot of children living and learning at the Temple, even if just a small percent of them would become Padawans and even smaller number would climb higher up the ladder.

That also meant that the rooms of learners were shared, though the children had the habit to leave the drop-outs on their own, partially to give them some space and partially because of the irrational fear that socializing with a failure would somehow drag them down.

So Obi-Wan should be fine now.

Dropping on the bed that he recognized as his own by the knick-knack on the shelf next to it, Obi-Wan looked at the ceiling and wondered.

How much things are going to change with both him stepping away, deciding to pick a different fate for themselves than the one that they've already lived through?

Would it be similar? Or would it be entirely different?

Obi-Wan doubted that his disappearance into the AgriCorps would change much - if Qui-Gon was destined to find Anakin, then he would find the boy. And without Maul being there to kill him - because Obi-Wan honestly believed that no one else would be good enough - he would live.

That was... good. Good enough for him to close his eyes and doze off.

 

xxx

 

Long, long time ago, Obi-Wan used to reprimand Anakin for sleeping through the middle of the day. The boy, instead of paying attention to his teachers or other kids during training sessions - and those Anakin desperately needed, since he was so far behind everyone - was dozing off, which caused troubles for both of them.

Perhaps Obi-Wan would be much more understanding, if not for the fact that the boy had an annoying habit of waking up what seemed to be the middle of the night and wandering around. It was months before the Jedi responsible for the Creche stopped bothering with waking obi-Wan up so he could help searching for the supposedly lost child.

Now, when stuck right back in a tiny body of his prepubescent self, Obi-Wan finally understood why it was so hard to get rid of that habit.

The twin suns of Tatooine burned straight through the skin, the blaze reaching deep, deep into bones and forcing every living creature that dared to make a step on its sandy surface to follow a certain rhythm of daily activities.

Obi-Wan was not as resistant as he expected himself to be.

Half-past three in the night, he was wide awake and staring at the ceiling, itching to get up, get out, because the desert was cold now, promising precious droplets of water waiting to be collected.

With a groan, he closed his eyes.

This was Coruscant, where the air tasted just like it did on a spaceship, artificial, fully controlled and with a mild, acidic aftertaste that was impossible to get rid of no matter what people were trying to do about it.

Just a few meters away, there were children sleeping in their own beds. Their soft breathes and small snored were the most surreal sounds in his life.

A shift in the darkness caused Obi-Wan to instinctively tense, his hand reaching out for the lightsaber only to remember that he wasn't old enough to have his weapon. The training sabers were not allowed in the dorms, to reduce the chance of children getting hurt during horsing around.

Obi-Wan slowly exhaled. There was no danger here, not yet.

Whoever was moving around in the darkness, was getting closer and closer. Both the entrance to the dorm and the doors leading to the loo were in the opposite direction, so Obi-Wan decided to wait and see what was going to happen.

Was it Bruck again, trying to prank him in an act of revenge for the embarrassment earlier in the day? Was it one of the older kids doing the night patrol instead of a caretaker, because the caretaker themselves decided to spend the time enjoying the city? these things happened from time to time, though nobody ever asked him to do so. Neither was Anakin or Ahsoka - kids deemed to be troublesome were never picked for that and all three of them had rather bad reputation during their early years.

"Obi? Are you sleeping?" a soft, gentle whisper reached his ear, as the mysterious night wanderer stopped not far away from his bed.

The voice was soft and tiny, if a bit anxious.

"I'm not," he replied, trying to put a name to the voice. He failed. He had no idea who were all these people sleeping in the same room he did, he had no idea who were the people he was sitting in the same classes with, besides just a handful of characters who simply made a very strong impression on him. So, Bruck Chun the bully, Quinlan Vos the guy who was not going away...

"You've told us you will ask Master Qui-Gon," the person continued. "I didn't want to confront you with all these people around-"

The details became much more visible. He was talking to a Mon Calamari, a female one, who was close to him and shifted her whole body, uncertain how to deal with the situation but determined to help him somehow.

Bant.

Obi-Wan smiled to his memories of the sweet, kind Bant, who was always there for anyone, who needed support.

"You didn't, though," she continued. "You've just... wandered somewhere. I was worried."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you okay?"

"I think so," Obi-Wan said, having no clue how else he was supposed to answer.

"It's not like you," Bant tensed up and her gills flared up in anger. "You don't just give up, Obi. You try and then try again."

"Some people say that repeating one action over and over again while expecting different outcomes is a sign of craziness," he chuckled.

Bant glared at him, not satisfied with the joke as his reply.

"Look," Obi-Wan sighed. "No matter where I will go, what I will be doing, I will still be a Jedi, right?"

"Just not the kind you wanted to be," Bant sighed. "You talked so much about adventures and put so much work to develop a skill with lightsaber..."

"I don't think I will need something to cut things through to help people," Obi-Wan said. "I'm good with a training saber and it should be just enough, right?"

Bant leaned towards him, staring intensively with her round eyes.

"Are you going to go against your orders?"

"Not against," he smirked. "Merely around."

"Obi-Wan!" she gasped, putting both of her hands to her mouth, her whole body language speaking of dread. "This is-! You are-!"

Then, suddenly, she relaxed, as if the tension suddenly melted away.

"You are finally acting like yourself again," Bant gave him the sweetest smile he ever saw on her face. "I'm glad."

 

xxx

 

When Obi-Wan found himself in the training room with weapon in hand and facing Bruck as his opponent, he wondered if he did something wrong.

There was a vague memory of Qui-Gon Jinn being angry at him for fighting so aggressively, however Obi-Wan was fairly sure that the fight happened somewhere in the middle of an corridor and proceed all the way to the Room of Thousands Fountains, not on the opposite side of it.

With a corner of his eye, he could spot both master Jinn and Grandmaster Yoda observing them, along with a several faces he couldn't recognize.

Right, Obi-Wan thought. Yoda probably got a hint from the Force that master Jinn and him would work as a good master-padawan duo, so he was meddling just to shove Obi-Wan down master Jinns throat as soon as possible.

"I'm going to win!" Bruck declared with a determined look on his face.

"Yeah, sure you will," Obi-Wan replied, wondering how he was supposed to deal with this situation.

First of all, he didn't want to hurt Bruck. He was a child, as terrified of being left out as Obi-Wan himself once was, desperate for attention and innocent. Bruck didn't deserve to be a victim just because Kenobi needed to fight aggressively for everything to run smoothly for Obi-Wans selfish vacation plans.

Obviously, he couldn't use Soresu either; even in a body of completely different shape and reach, the style was still way too polished for an Initiate. Not to mention, even his own variation of the style was hardly on the aggressive side.

What then?

The duel was already starting and Obi-Wan bowed only because Bruck was already doing it.

This slip definitely did not come unnoticed. Obi-Wan was curious if the masters will decide it was a sign of pride or merely a result of his lack of attention.

Bruck stepped forward, lightsaber ignited and crossing the air. His form was still, as if he was trying with all his might to make every single movement just like it was demonstrated in the manual and the holos.

Obi-Wan bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling, while his brain was still trying to spawn some sort of a strategy to fail this whole thing.

Clearly, trying to copy the obviously aggressive style Anakin preferred was out of question; Anakin was huge and using his size during the fights. Size was definitely not something Obi-Wan had at his disposal, same with raw physical power. If anything, Bruck was bigger than him.

The lightsabers buzzed, meeting each other and locking together, giving Obi-Wan enough time to finally find his answer. He knew fairly well a person who was small and used this to her advantage, who also had a ferocious style of fighting.

Breaking the contact and stepping to the side gave Obi-Wan enough time to swirl his lightsaber around.

The reverse grip made Bruck to raise his eyebrow in confusion.

Obi-Wan bend his knees and then jumped forward. The sudden rush confused Bruck even more, pushing him into defensive.

It was... fun. Obi-Wan never had much practice with the reverse grip, finding it to be rather inefficient in battle, but now... it was simply fun and also very, very awkward, giving Bruck enough time to protect himself from the barrage of slashes.

"Enough!" Qui-Gon stomped down on the training mat. "What in the world are you thinking?!"

"Um..." Obi-Wan bit his lip, his mind suddenly so full of things he couldn't find actual words to use.

It was tempting, oh so very tempting, to drop everything he had planned and just follow the stream of events just as they were just so he could be close to this man. This time he had knowledge, he had abilities, he could protect him, prevent his death, save him...

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, Qui-Gon rant about how aggression was a trait that a Jedi couldn't have flew right over him.

Qui-Gon Jinn was already saved.

Maul was not going to be on Naboo to kill the Jedi Master. Obi-Wan highly doubted that Qui-Gon Jinn would be even send to investigate things on Naboo in the first place - they were chosen to do that in the first place because Obi-Wan was quite old for a padawan and also much, much more experienced than others Jedi his age.

Qui-Gon Jinn was going to be safe without Obi-Wan following his every step like a shadow.

"I hope practicing usage of the Living Force with the AgriCorps would help you sort this anger out," Qui-Gon finished his speech.

Obi-Wan hoped it would help him too. The ability to slash things into tiny bits ended up as his least useful skill.

"You might go now," the Jedi master said and Obi-Wan nodded and hurried away, not trusting himself to actually look up and meet Qui-Gon's eyes.

Rushing past the Jedi master, feeling the weight of stares on his back, Obi-Wan hoped to retreat to his bed without any other distractions and just wait until it was time for him to finally leave.

No such luck.

"Oh, Obi!" Bant gently wrapped her hand around his arm. "I'm so, so sorry!"

"Don't be," Obi-Wan automatically tried to reassure her. Seeing a child so sweet was physically painful.

"I was so sure that you will get accepted this time!" she continued, big round eyes shining with sadness, hands covered in delicate, salmon scales shaking. "And you were so good!"

"Thank you," he nodded. "But really, you don't need to worry."

"You've just tried so hard..." Bant sighed. "I hoped that you were better today than before... you were fighting for it."

Obi-Wan was indeed fighting today, however he was trying to get the completely different thing that the girl was thinking about.

It would be strange, if she wasn't confused. As a child, Obi-Wan was always so eager to prove himself, so ready to pick up a fight and even easier to provoke. Now he was just this old, tired person hidden inside the body of a child, so done with fighting that he was more eager to call truce with a Sith and grow plants than doing anything even a little bit exciting.

In the end, he probably had a problem, just not the one Bant expected him to have.

"I'm going to be just fine," he tried to reassure her. "If you want, I can send you a message? It shouldn't be a problem to grab a datapad and do some holos."

"That would be nice," Bant sighed gratefully. "I would like to know that you are doing okay."

"I will," Obi-Wan smiled. "I promise."

 

xxx

 

The next time he saw Maul, the Zabrak was standing steady on his own legs. There was also something off about him, through Obi-Wan needed a few moments to realize that there was something other but an annoyed expression on his face.

The bruises merged really well with the dark lines of the tattoos and the red skin wasn't making it any easier to spot them. If not for the fact that the symmetry was broken, they would be almost invisible.

Obi-Wan wasn't sure if asking about the bruises would be a good idea. Did he get those by learning how to walk again? Or was there a fight somewhere? A child after all looked like an easy prey and while Maul was far away from being defenceless, but the rest of the Coruscant didn't know that. And he was probably forced to hole up in one of the darker corners of it.

"You're here," he said, not having any idea what other words to use.

"Obviously," Maul sighed.

"Good," Obi-Wan nodded. "The ship to Bandomeer, it is going to leave tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Maul raised an eyebrow. "That's not the date of yours-"

"I know," Obi-wan shrugged. "This is exactly how it went the last time though."

Back then, it felt like the most unfair thing in the world, like he was being robbed of his chance to become something more than he already was, that someone decided to pick his fate for him at it was so mediocre and boring, completely different to what Obi-Wan was imagining for himself.

Now however, it was a relief. A chance to get away from the temple haunted by memories and faces of people whom he watched dying.

Obi-Wan was also just simply curious. After spending years upon years as a hermit in the middle of Tatooine's desert, the perspective of learning how to use the Living Force to help things grow and prosper... it was just plain fascinating, so very different from activating the lightsaber at the first sign of trouble.

"Well, the ship is not going to wait for me," Obi-Wan answered the question with a shrug. "It is a quite big vessel, transporting many people. "

"And a Hutt," Maul added. "Whoever thought that putting together the crew of two different mining companies was a good idea, was either a very naive person or plain dumb."

Obi-Wan blinked.

"What?" Maul wrinkled his nose. "I've made my research. I would be perfectly able to find the right ship without your help."

"So, are you simply humoring me now?"

"I might just be."

"Fair enough," he nodded because he nad nothing else to say. "The security shouldn't be too much for you and hiding on a vessel is not going to be a problem-"

"Kenobi," Maul groaned. "I've assassinated people who had a much better security that a transport ship."

"You did?"

"Of course I did. The politicians do not die on their own. Usually."

"Usually?" Obi-Wan repeated after him. while the topic was rather disturbing, he felt that there was some sort of a story behind it.

Maul shook his head.

"There was that one senator, who could take a dozen of Twi'Leks slaves, but his heart gave out the moment he saw me," he said. "The Twi'Leks gave me candy."

Obi-Wan snorted, the image vivid and utterly hilarious in his mind.

However the candy served as a something more than a just amusing image; it suggested something dark, something he didn't want to think about.

"I was so out of my waters by the whole thing, I didn't kill the slaves," Maul continued. "Of course, telling m- Sidious about this failure was out of question, so I've spend a lot of time making sure that no one noticed their escape."

It was all so completely, utterly wrong, but the image in his head was still beyond hilarious.

Feeling that laughing out loud could be offensive, Obi-Wan decided to take care of the bag he dragged all the way here.

"I've brought food, through it is all cooked. It would be weird for a human to take food for carnivores-"

"I don't eat raw meat," Maul cut him out.

"You're a Zabrak!"

"And I don't eat raw things," Maul cut him out again. "Let it go."

Well, Obi-Wan thought. At least he wasn't refusing the food.

Maul was a surprisingly picky eater too, ignoring everything that was spiced to heavily for his tastes.

Obi-Wan, despite all the years, still remembered vividly the one time he dared to take a part in a game invented by Zabrak initiates. It involved eating raw hot peppers and popping a handful of spicy seeds into the already painfully spicy mix.

While he felt like his face was on fire, the Zabrak kid who was his opponent wasn't even blinking.

The whole thing made Mauls preferences rather interesting. Was is a Dathomiri thing? Or some sort of odd personal preferences?  
The previous comment about eating raw food was delivered in a harsh enough tone of voice that Obi-Wan decided against asking. Pissing him off over silly things like that simply didn't make sense. Besides, on Tatooine Obi-Wan ate tasteless things for years, so Mauls preference for bland things made sharing food much, much easier.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to read time-travel stories but there were always things that confused the living hell out of me. Like, when the MC is proudly and easily winning this time with his old nemesis, using the foreknowledge to their advantage... instead of squealing over how cute their tiny nemesis looked like. I mean, so tiny. Chubby cheeks. Childish, innocent name-calling. How they were able to treat these kids as the enemy instead of pinching their cheeks...?
> 
> Also, the story about how sith!Maul saved a bunch of innocent people because puberty. I've giggled a lot during writing this chapter.
> 
> The last thing - I'm going through the Jedi Apprentice books to have some reference about what stuff was going on when Obi-Wan was a kid. And holy shit, guys, the way Qui-Gon was written makes him a really terrible person. Dunno if it was planned or it just came out this way, but damn.


End file.
